A successful funding year can leave you less able to deliver.
Restricted grants pay for programmes. They rarely pay for the people who run them. Growth in restricted income with flat unrestricted income is the most common way a healthy-looking organisation runs out of room.
Three questions a nonprofit rarely gets a straight answer to.
Each one needs the finance system, the delivery record and the grant calendar in the same view.
What does one outcome actually cost to deliver?
Programme cost plus the share of core cost it consumes. Funders increasingly ask; most organisations estimate it once, for a bid.
How much unrestricted runway is left?
Restricted funds cannot cover the gap, so the headline balance is not the number that matters.
Which reporting obligations are about to land?
Grant conditions, deadlines and evidence requirements, in one place, before the week they are due.
Income up 22%. Two months less runway.
Three readings that a board would reasonably receive as good news.
Illustrative example
- Finance
Total income up 22%, unrestricted income down 8%
Looks like a strong funding year.
- Delivery
Beneficiaries served up 30% across two new programmes
Looks like impact growing.
- Staffing
Core team unchanged, overtime up sharply
Looks like a committed team.
The two new grants fund delivery but contribute almost nothing to core costs, while the staff running them are paid from unrestricted funds. Every additional beneficiary is now drawing down the reserve. Unrestricted runway has fallen from nine months to seven despite the best income year on record. The next bid needs a full cost recovery line, and two existing funders should be asked to vary theirs.
Nothing here is a mistake by anybody. It is an arithmetic problem that only appears when funding, delivery and staffing are read together.
What Aptic reads in a nonprofit.
Read-only by default, and nothing changes in any of them without your approval.
- Finance: restricted and unrestricted funds, budgets against actuals
- Grants and fundraising: conditions, deadlines, reporting requirements, renewal dates
- Delivery records: beneficiaries served, outcomes, cost per outcome
- Volunteer and staff time, so core cost recovery can be calculated rather than guessed
Who looks at what first.
All six offices read your organisation. For nonprofits, these three set the agenda.
Finance
Unrestricted runway, full cost recovery, and the funds that cannot legally cover the gap.
Management
Grant conditions, reporting deadlines and renewals, tracked so none of them arrive as a surprise.
Strategy
Which programmes to grow, which funders to renegotiate with, and what to say no to.
What the first thirty days produce.
- 01
A cost per outcome you can put in a bid
Programme cost plus its share of core cost, calculated from your own records rather than estimated for the form.
- 02
An unrestricted runway figure, kept current
The number the board actually needs, updated as funds move rather than rebuilt each quarter.
- 03
A reporting calendar that chases itself
Every condition and deadline in one place, with owners, and a reminder that fires before the week it is due.
Find out what your work costs and what your runway really is.
Aptic runs a pro bono programme for organisations doing meaningful work. Tell us about yours and we will tell you honestly whether we can help.